


Food Chain

by Oceanbreeze7



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Dark, Gen, Harry Potter is a Horcrux, Horcruxes, Sharing a Bed, Tom Riddle's Diary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 13:43:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15775263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oceanbreeze7/pseuds/Oceanbreeze7
Summary: “Oh,” Tom breathed in awe, “oh I see now.”Ginny wheezed stiffly, and Harry tugged on her arm desperately.“Harry,” Tom smiled, large and beaming and for a moment Harry couldn’t imagine the boy doing anything wrong. “I’m going to help you get Ginny out of here, how about I take her and you go fetch my diary?”Harry grabbed the diary, hands wet with slime and watery blood.(The diary absorbed the mixture, tainting it with blood and sweat and soul.)And that, was the end of all that could have been.





	Food Chain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [threevi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/threevi/gifts).



> Because I need a break with stress and life, and the best way to do that is to try something new.  
> Here's a drabble I've made in a couple hours because I'm tired.

_Harry had to crane his neck to look up into the giant face above: It was ancient and monkeyish, with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard’s sweeping stone robes, where two enormous gray feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor. And between the feet, facedown, lay a small, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair. “Ginny!” Harry muttered, sprinting to her and dropping to his knees._

_“Ginny — don’t be dead — please don’t be dead —” He flung his wand aside, grabbed Ginny’s shoulders, and turned her over. Her face was white as marble, and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn’t Petrified. But then she must be…_

_“Ginny, please wake up,” Harry muttered desperately, shaking her. Ginny’s head lolled hopelessly from side to side._

_“She won’t wake,” said a soft voice._

_(Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secret,  Chapter Seventeen, The Heir of Slytherin)_

* * *

 

Harry jumped, startling so harshly his knees knocked against the stone flooring and jarred through his legs. He scrambled, spinning around on his knees and bruising them in the process.

Someone was in the chamber with him, too quiet and too motionless for Harry to have noticed before.

A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar. Even then, his features and body were mostly hidden in the gloom. The edges of his body were blurred, fading off into the dark as if the light Harry managed to cast was being gnawed on by something ravenous. There was something surreal about it all, a sense of sheer _wrongness_ as if his being there was against a rule Harry didn’t know about before. Harry didn’t think that any amount of detentions was going to stop him.

Harry recognized him on sight, even through the darkness.

“Tom- Tom Riddle?”

The boy blinked slowly, the movement calm and predatory. Despite that, he didn’t take his eyes off Harry’s face for more than a second. He had an eerie sort of focus, a devotion that Harry couldn’t quite place. After a pause, the boy nodded slowly, face entirely emotionless.

Ginny wheezed on the floor, a broken noise that snapped Harry out of whatever haunting presence Riddle managed to demand.

“What d’you mean, she won’t wake?” Harry asked, although the quickening verge of panic distorted his voice into pure desperation. “She’s not- she’s not-?”

Clearly she wasn’t dead, the rasping inhales of her breath and the faint rise and fall of her chest explained that well enough. Harry couldn’t quite force himself to stop, to think rationally despite all of the logic in front of him.

“She’s still alive,” Riddle confirmed, voice low and smooth yet still whispery. It sounded like the Great Hall when it rained, the thousands of whispers of water on the roof that hit too quickly and too randomly to ever place. Instead, it created a faint symphony of sound that echoed everywhere and left Harry’s neck prickling.

Riddle still hadn’t taken his eyes off of Harry, barely blinking in the dark.

Tom Riddle had been at Hogwarts fifty years ago, yet here he stood. The weird disorienting haze on Harry’s vision, the black shadows threatening to chew into Riddle’s body itself although the other boy didn’t seem concerned in the slightest. More intrigued, uncaring and detached with a very clear fascination.

Riddle couldn’t be here, it wasn’t possible.

“Are you a ghost?” Harry breathed.

(He was sure there were thousands of other spells and sorts that could have made Riddle appear like this. He was sure there were potions or charms or hexes but somehow- something about this felt far to intimate to be mundane.)

(He didn’t want Riddle to be a ghost.)

(He didn’t want Riddle to be dead.)

“I-” Riddle paused, sentence broken and hanging in the air between them. Electric, the impending spark of lightning that would flicker between them before striking and killing everything in a single flash of godly power.

Riddle tilted his head, ever so slightly and spoke quietly. “No.”

Harry looked away from him, grabbing his hands around Ginny’s limp form more out of a distraction than anything else. “You’ve got to help me, Tom. We’ve got to get her out of here. There’s a basilisk...I don’t know where it is, but it could be along any moment-”

Tom took one step forward. Harry glanced over at the sound of water splashing, dislodged by a shined black leather shoe. Tom wasn’t approaching to help him, instead he was holding Harry’s wand with the most peculiar expression.

“Thanks,” Harry sighed in relief, reaching out to take his wand once Tom offered it.

Tom didn’t offer it. He looked at Harry’s wand, running long pale fingers over the wood- tracing the grain and noticing the small chip in it from when it clipped a Troll’s tooth. Tom twirled it, watching with far too attentive eyes as he spun it once- twice- _three_ times then stopped instantly.

Harry thought that Tom had looked much more relaxed when twirling it. Harry didn’t like the bright light in Tom’s eyes, delighted and curious.

“Listen,” Harry sweated out, hands clammy on Ginny’s pale cold skin. “There’s this basilisk and we’ve gotta get out of here before it-”

“It won’t come until it is called.” Tom cut him off calmly, glancing back down to study Harry’s wand with outright fascination. He was looking more enamored than the old man Ollivander.

Harry lowered Ginny back to the floor, his arms trembling from the effort of holding her up alone.

“What d’you mean?” Harry asked, “Look, give me my wand, I might need it-”

“Do you know,” Riddle cut him off casually, as if Harry had never spoken at all, “When I first held your wand, I cast a detection spell to see if you had anyone else accompanying you. I hate surprises, you see.”

Harry felt a clear, sharp chill pierce his chest, although he couldn’t for the life of him explain why.

“Imagine my surprise,” Riddle murmured, tapping one finger against Harry’s wand, “when your wand works for my magic. I have a rather... _picky,_ sense of magic. When I first got my wand, I set two inferior wands on fire. Another exploded instantaneously. But _yours…_ ” Riddle trailed off before his grip tightened visibly, “I daresay yours is like a _brother_ to mine.”

Riddle’s eyes slid slowly over to Harry, locking eyes. Not once did Riddle look at his scar. “Tell me, Harry, why is that?”

Harry couldn’t breathe through the suffocating weight pressing on his chest. “Tom, Tom please I need Ginny-”

“Your wand shouldn’t work this well.” Tom spoke again, interrupting instantly. He took another step forward, the water swished around his feet. “There are strange likenesses between us. Even you must have noticed; both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles. Parselmouths, we even look something alike…”

Harry reeled back, scrambling back on his heels to plop on his behind. Water sloshed around him, soaking through his robe to chill his back.

“What- Tom? Tom you’re a Parselmouth?”

Tom tilted his head again, and took two closer steps. “Yet all of those similarities are simply...environmental. Coincidental. Tell me, did you expect being here alone?”

Harry stopped, struggling to think through the sudden unexpected rush of information. “I- what no I- my friend Ron is back there and-,”

“I noticed that other boy in my detection spell. With that buffoon of a teacher, yet from what I’ve gathered and the collapse of the main tunnel, you brought that idiotic man down here for ulterior motives.” Riddle’s eyes were practically glittering. He took one step closer, finally close enough that Harry could trace the subtle curve of his cheekbones with his eyes.

Riddle smiled, a small polite expression that fit on his face entirely wrong. “You brought that teacher down here out of petty revenge, vindication. Yet somehow, you already were fully prepared to face this chamber alone. You didn’t even see me when you first came in here.”

Harry wanted to argue, but he couldn’t. What purpose was there to argue something which everyone knew was true. Even if Harry didn’t want to admit it, he was _mad_ at Professor Lockhart, he _wanted_ that man to get in trouble for all the lies and suffering he brought on others.

And...and he hadn’t really ever thought of facing a basilisk with Ron at his side. He hadn’t really considered what his friend would do anyways. He always knew he was going to do this alone.

Riddle stepped forward again, close enough he could have reached down to press Harry’s wand against his throat. Riddle didn’t blink, eyes locked on Harry’s and through his gaze alone there was an immense _pressure._

Something pushing and pounding on his head, squeezing his skull like it was a melon ready to crack open. Dudley once took a pumpkin and smashed it across Harry’s back and shoulders, it had bruised him badly and broken apart and coated him in a pungent slime. It hurt, badly. Harry wondered if his brain looked like pumpkin slime.

“Ah,” Riddle breathed in a rushed exhale. “It’s okay, you.. You should have hung you aunt's dog.”

(He should have hung Ripper, Aunt Marge would have deserve-)

Harry broke away with a gasp. His voice was high pitched, loud in the chamber. He pulled his face away, eyes wide and gasping in surprise. There was something hot and sticky running down his face, blood. His scar was bleeding.

Tom Riddle looked absolutely mesmerized.

“Oh,” Tom breathed in awe, “oh I see now.”

Ginny wheezed stiffly, and Harry tugged on her arm desperately.

“Harry,” Tom smiled, large and beaming and for a moment Harry couldn’t imagine the boy doing anything wrong. “I’m going to help you get Ginny out of here, how about I take her and you go fetch my diary?”

“Right,” Harry agreed, rubbing his wet hands on his already soggy robes. He didn’t think Tom would appreciate his diary getting any more ruined than it was now. “Since you’re stronger. Can you carry Ginny?”

Tom nodded politely, offering one hand to help pull Harry to his feet. Harry reached up, grabbing the offered hand (the skin felt cold and _wrong wrong wrong_ but somehow, it was _right_ ), and stumbled upwards.

There was a small pain, something sharp that flashed around his palm. Riddle’s eyebrow scrunched in concern. Harry cradled his hand to his chest.

There was a cut on his hand, by the first joint of his index finger. He must have torn the skin on the rocks when the pipe caved in. It must have broken open when Riddle helped him up.

Harry brushed past Riddle, scrambling over the water as he ran towards the diary. Once he got it, Tom could help him carry Ginny out and they could get Professor Dumbledore and he could kill the basilisk and-

Harry grabbed the diary, hands wet with slime and watery blood.

(The diary absorbed the mixture, tainting it with blood and sweat and soul.)

And that, was the end of all that could have been.

* * *

 

“Oh,” Harry breathed quietly, holding the book in his hand. It was wet, but rapidly drying the moment he lifted it from the ground. The pages absorbed fluid, sucked the blood from Harry’s cut hand like a dog lapping at water.

Harry tilted his head, staring at the book dumbly.

Harry had been rather dumb hadn’t he.

His first introduction into the Wizarding World was Hagrid, who was a wonderful man but truly a horrid guardian. He housed a Cerberus in the castle, he hatched an incredibly illegal dragon’s egg and kept the secret with three _eleven year old children,_ he raised an Acromantula within the castle, which turned into a ravenous furious monster.

Somehow though, Hagrid’s disregard for the safety of others was already well known. It seemed a bit silly, that Hagrid would be his first introduction into the Wizarding World.

It seemed silly, that Harry had instantly allied himself with Ron. Ron was so terribly biased, and same was Hagrid.

Harry knew that he didn’t know that much about the Wizarding World, everything was still new and terribly overwhelming. Draco had turned into a great extreme, the far side of the worst of Wizards. Ron on the other side, the advocate for equality although he was rather rubbish at everything muggle.

It seemed... _silly,_ to ally himself with someone so biased without investigating further on his own.

“Is something the matter?” Tom asked, standing in exactly the same space he had been standing. He was twirling Harry’s wand, face guarded and blank.

“Ginny’s dying.” Harry spoke, blinking behind the rush of thoughts. Ginny was dying, and in return Tom Riddle was coming to life.

He knew that he should save Ginny, that Ginny was Ron’s sister and Ron would never be happy with her death.

But...but what did Ron actually _offer_ him? His mother was awfully sweet, taking him under her wing. Ron didn’t know that much about the Wizarding World either, and he was so terribly biased.

In all honesty, Tom Riddle was more helpful than Ginny. He had been a Head Boy, a Prefect. He was smart, handsome too. He likely had perfect OWLS, and impressive NEWTS when the time came. He was a Parselmouth, and he had grown up in an orphanage so he had a completely unbiased opinion on the Wizarding World. Tom knew more about the financial state of the world, the political movements and the various pureblood houses. He knew more about spells, about magic and things nobody wanted to tell Harry about.

And Ginny...Ginny was nice but she wasn’t anything close to that.

“There’s something known as a value theory.” Tom began, turning away from Ginny to look at Harry with something masked, “it’s a form of philosophy that ponders the value of good, and worth to various interests.”

Harry’s brown furrowed as he scrambled to think about how to interpret that. “You mean like, if something is better than another?”

Tom gave a patient nod. “There’s more to it, questions about intrinsic value and instrumental value, but the concept of paradigmatically is far too advanced to be discussed right now. Tell me, Harry, have you ever had a partner on an assignment that was truly pathetic?”

Harry instantly thought of Neville, who set their shared Transfiguration project on fire the second time he tried to give the wooden block a nose.

Tom nodded calmly, “and you have a preferred partner, who you know would have resulted in a much better quality result?”

Of course, anything with Hermione would result in a soaring grade. Hermione wasn’t anything special with actual magic, but she was bloody brilliant with anything essay based.

Tom smiled, his teeth sharp in the low light. “That is the basic concept of assigning worth. Tell me Harry, in the future who would have a better career? Who would have better contributions to society?”

“You.” Harry spoke instantly, barely blinking.

Tom nodded calmly. “You can only pick between Ginny and me, Harry.”

Harry didn’t blink. “You.”

Tom smiled, eyes glowing as he offered one hand. Harry walked to it, holding it without thought. The diary in his other hand thrummed slightly, buzzing under his fingers. Tom’s hand became warm, smooth except the callouses from using a quill. Ginny shuddered, and then died.

“Now,” Tom started, not blinking over the death of the young girl. Harry didn’t blink either, it was a waste of emotion to worry over something inherently lesser. You don’t cry over a squashed beetle, you don’t cry when you hang a rabbit.

“How about we leave this Chamber now?” Tom suggested calmly, “although before we do so, I have a suggestion.”

Tom’s suggestions would be good. The boy was older and much more intelligent. Harry nodded and Tom lowered himself to one knee, looking at Harry in the eye.

“You’re very special, Harry.” Tom smiled, running one of his hands through Harry’s hair, tracing the scar only briefly, “very special, and I’m going to take care of you now. I can make you something very impressive, but I need to be able to merge with you.”

Harry blinked in confusion, “merge? Like adding pumpkin juice to water?”

Tom didn’t react to the strange analogy. “You’re the Boy-Who-Lived, that’s very special and very important. You’ve very valuable to society, and _I’m_ very valuable to society. Wouldn’t it be better if we were combined? We would be very valuable then, and very powerful.”

That made sense.

Tom always made sense.

(Things were so clear now, questions that Harry always thought were right now seemed pathetic. Things he thought were true now seemed like cardboard cutouts.)

“There’s no such thing as good and evil.” Harry breathed, the words sounding more true than anything he’d ever heard before.

“Only power,” Tom continued with a smile so delighted Harry could only smile in response, “and those too weak to seek it.”

That made sense.

Harry nodded.

* * *

 

The basilisk was something powerful, it was only luck that nothing had happened yet.

Harry grabbed Ginny’s body, levitating it with a whispered spell he never remembered leaning but had used a hundred times. Harry walked the pipes, depositing Ginny outside the hospital wing on Tom’s suggestion. Harry walked back to the Gryffindor tower, and went to bed.

Classes were canceled, the body was found. Ron Weasley and Professor Lockhart were lost, it was presumed that Professor Lockhart had stolen Ron as assurance that nobody would try and chase him down.

Mrs. Weasley came to the castle, screaming and crying and clutching her dead child to her heart.

It seemed silly, to cry over a child. They were dead already, they were just a corpse that would rot and pass on in a few days now.

 _“It is silly,”_ Tom commented leisurely, and Harry could only agree.

They called a meeting in the Great Hall, all Slytherins were banned and kept in the dungeons. They were afraid that the heir would strike again, now that there was a body. A pureblood at that, although a blood traitor in everything that mattered.

 _“There is a war going on,”_ Tom commented as Harry sat at the back of the Gryffindor table, ignoring the long speeches of sadness. It hung over the hall like a blanket. _“And in war, many people die. It isn’t the numbers, that matter, but the occasion.”_

That was true. People died every day. People died in accidents, on purpose, it didn’t matter. People only remembered the big moments, the occasions where it meant something and people remembered it.

 _“Do you know, a basilisk’s stare is painless?”_ Tom told him, whispering to his mind as he sat at the table. _“It’s very quick, and to think, Hogwarts has almost a third of the newest generation of Witches and Wizards.”_

That was true, there weren’t that many witches and wizards.

 _“I wonder,”_ Tom thought, musing quietly, _“how quickly the war would end if a basilisk wandered in here. Many people wouldn’t die later on, and all of the truly valuable students are in Slytherin which is absent.”_

Harry had seen people die before, dying in one second seemed much more polite than painfully and bleeding out everywhere.

Harry had been hit by his uncle before, his and pushed around until he sported bruises and bleeding cuts. It hurt, and he wouldn’t wish it on anyone. How much more would it hurt, to be knocked around until someone _died?_ Wasn’t it much more nice and kind to kill someone before they even realized what was going on? Wasn’t it more...humane?

 _“It is.”_ Tom consoled gently, _“and really Harry, nobody here is more valuable than you and me.”_

Tom was right, so Harry stood up and left the Great Hall.

He came back, with the mighty basilisk following him obediently.

Harry opened the doors to the Great Hall, and strode in.

The entire faculty table stiffened and went limp as they instinctively looked at the new source of sound. All the students screamed, loud and piercing as they scrambled across the floor. They looked like ants, scurrying under Dudley’s magnifying glass.

“No,” Harry spoke out loud, for himself and for Tom, “this is nicer than that.”

Tom pulsed in agreement, thrumming happiness. Harry’s scar had never felt nice before.

Students dropped, catching sight of the large glowing eyes. The basilisk was chattering, talking about how hungry it was. Cats ate mice. Birds ate rabbits. Snakes ate children. It all made sense.

Students lay twitching, dead; peacefully scattered throughout the entire room. Spell marks were seared into the walls, the basilisk had magic repellent scales.

Dumbledore looked most surprised, eyes wide and clutching his chest. He had been in the middle of a speech. He hadn’t expected anyone to come into the Great Hall and he caught him off guard.

 _“He wasn’t ever that good.”_ Tom advised him gently. _“He would have tried to stop you. He never liked telling people everything they wanted to know. They try to stunt you.”_

“He knew my parents.” Harry spoke, staring down at the grey hair now scattered across the stone. “He put me with the Dursleys.”

 _“Ah.”_ Tom sagely added, although no words were truly necessary.

Killing for the first time was hard, but Harry had killed before. He had killed Billy’s rabbit, he had burned Professor Quirrell to death. He had killed Myrtle, and sighed in peace the moment her pathetic crying had stopped.

Killing after that, was pruning the weeds in Aunt Petunia’s garden. Get rid of the poison, to save the roses that everyone wanted.

 _“Let’s go free the Slytherins,”_ Tom suggested happily, _“and perhaps find that Malfoy boy. I would like to talk to his father.”_

Harry strode out of the room. He thought he spotted the basilisk eating a sixth year, but he ignored it.

It was simply survival of the fittest.

**Author's Note:**

> [Join the discord server to scream at me and I'll scream back!](https://discord.gg/SVrMbMS)


End file.
